I let myself inside the sheriff’s office, which was combined with our city hall and the county courthouse in one somber old building with a clock tower, a cupola, and a huge marble statue of Lady Justice. I actually enjoyed the Christmas shift, because I had the building mostly to myself. Our tiny office smelled like cigarettes and the menthol rub that our department secretary, Mrs. Mannheim, slathered on her knees. I turned on the office lights, which flickered on the water-stained ceiling, and I made my way past the desks of the other deputies.

My desk was the smallest. It was located immediately next to the men’s bathroom, with an unobstructed view of the urinals whenever the door opened. The sheriff hadn’t put me there by accident. He was sending me a message: See what we have that you don’t? You’re missing a vital piece of equipment to work here, and it ain’t your gun.

I dug in the bottom drawer of my desk for my hidden stash of fudge, which was my weakness. Chocolate, with walnuts and dried cherries. I popped a cassette of Synchronicity into my tape recorder and listened to Sting, who was watching me with every breath I took. I lit up a Marlboro and relaxed. I eased back in my chair and thought about calling my father, but I didn’t even know where he was staying that night. It was silly, but I wanted him to tell me the poem he’d made up for me, to make me feel better after my mom died. I could still remember it word for word.

Things like that stick with you through the years. The good things and the bad things—I know that, sweetheart.

Because Dad wasn’t around, I recited the beginning of the poem out loud to myself:

Rebecca Colder, Rebecca Colder

She’s a little stronger

She’s a little bolder

Rebecca Colder, Rebecca Colder

The world can’t stop her

The world can’t hold her

Of course, I wasn’t Rebecca Colder anymore. I was Rebecca Todd, married to Ricky Todd. The rhymes of the poem didn’t really work for me in my married life. Even so, I recited it a couple more times in the quiet of the office, and I thought for a long, long time about the woman I’d become.

I had finished my third cigarette when the phone rang. When that happens in the middle of the night, it’s never good news.

“Deputy Todd,” I said when I picked it up.

“Deputy, this is Erica Brink.”

I was distracted and didn’t say anything immediately. In fact, I was silent for so long that she said it again.

“Deputy? Are you there? It’s Erica Brink.”

“What can I do for you, Mrs. Brink?” I replied finally.